It was the most lopsided election ever, as Phillies leftfielder Ed Delahanty received 40 of 43 first place votes and was elected to the Hall of Merit in first year of eligibility.

Joe Start held onto the position of 1st runner-up for the 2nd straight year, but Pud Galvin made progress, jumping over Bid McPhee for 3rd place, and cutting the gap between he and Start from 36 to 9 points.

Other notable newcomers were Jimmy Ryan (8th) and Frank Grant (9th).

Cal McVey finished 5th for the second year in a row. Charlie Bennett passed Harry Stovey into 6th place, and Hugh Duffy rounded out the top 10.

Ezra Sutton has been elected to the Hall of Merit. Sutton comfortably topped a tight field with 762 points, beating Joe Start (698), Bid McPhee (678) and Pud Galvin (662).

Cal McVey finished 5th, narrowly edging Harry Stovey. Charlie Bennett was 7th, Hugh Duffy finished 8th, Sam Thompson was 9th and Hughie Jennings, in his first year of eligibility rounded out the top 10.

Time to get started with the discussion, as one of the top classes we’ll see joins the ballot. Ed Delahanty, Frank Grant, Jimmy Ryan, George Van Haltren, Herman Long, John McGraw, Tom Daly and Chief Zimmer join the ballot. The next few elections will be very interesting as we now are knee-deep in another generation of viable candidates.

I’d like to push further the idea of people justifying anyone not in the previous top 10 that is left off your ballot. Several people did this last time, and I think it’s a good idea. For this election that would be . . . Ezra Sutton, Joe Start, Bid McPhee, Pud Galvin, Cal McVey, Harry Stovey, Charlie Bennett, Hugh Duffy and Sam Thompson.

I was thinking, maybe the original plan we came up with based on team years wasn’t the best way to go.

What if we based the electees on the number of players born in each year, projected out 45 years (the average age of our first 16 electees at the time of election).

Bear with me here while I explain this.

We’d start our 213 Hall of Famers through 2001 number. We’d the see how many players were born during or before 1956 (11713, plus 306 players we don’t have birthdates on).

Would there be anything else to adjust for? Such as allowing slots for 25 Negro Leaguers. Not as a quota, just factoring in that they aren’t in our pool of birthdates).

If we make the Negro League adjustment (we can worry about which years get electees later), we’d basically have one HoMer for every 63.93 major league players born. I think a great majority of all of the players we don’t have birthdates on played in the 19th Century, so I would add them to the ‘backlog’. Our 6th HoMer should be around the same time as the 349th player born. Counting the 306 + 43 we know we have would put our first HoMer born in 1845 or the 1890 election.

Our 20th HoMer, the last one we elected, would be the 823rd player born (not counting the 306 w/out birthdays, the 1129th including them), which was in 1864, which works out to our 1909 election. Which would mean we are just two ahead (although somewhat misproportioned). We’ve got a museum to run, so I wouldn’t hold off an election, but we’d only go one per year until we get back on schedule, which won’t be long. Alternatively, we could just add two HoMers (in recognition of the real Hall’s lack of Negro Leaguers and pre-1880s players) and go with 215. I’d probably support that, but I could be talked out of it too.

It’s not too late to change this, and I think it’s much better theoretically than our current system. There is no bias involved here, just a lightbulb that went off, one that should have gone off a year ago.

I should be able to post the schedule if we go down this path later today (I’m still working on it, since I have to do a lot of it by hand). What do you guys think?

In his first year of eligibility, Billy Hamilton was easily elected to the Hall of Merit, beating Ezra Sutton 877-674. Sutton was the runner-up for the second year in a row.

Joe Start jumped over Bid McPhee and Pud Galvin to finish 3rd. Galvin also fell behind McPhee to finish 5th. Cal McVey and Harry Stovey remained 6th and 7th, Charlie Bennett moved ahead of Sam Thompson to finish 8th, Hugh Duffy finished 9th in his first year of eligibility and Thompson rounded out the top 10.

Cupid Childs was the only other newcomer with significant support, finishing 11th.